JK Rowling, the cuckoo in crime novel nest

The Harry Potter writer has been unmasked as the author of an acclaimed detective tale

The cover illustration for JK Rowling’s novel, which was lavishly praised by critics (BBC/Daniel Deme)

IT WAS a remarkable first novel, and the critics were lavish in their praise.
Robert Galbraith’s detective story The Cuckoo’s Calling had marked him out
as a writer to watch.

The book reminded the crime writer Val McDermid of “why I fell in love with
crime fiction in the first place”. On the novel’s back cover, Mark
Billingham, another crime writer, described its central character, Cormoran
Strike, a private eye, as “one of the most unique and compelling detectives
I’ve come across in years”.

The publisher’s website claimed Galbraith was a pseudonym for a former
plainclothes Royal Military Police investigator who had left in 2003 to work
in the civilian security industry.

In fact, none of that was true. The author is JK Rowling, writer of the
bestselling Harry Potter series of children’s books. With The Cuckoo’s
Calling, Rowling, who published a successful adults’ book, The Casual
Vacancy, last autumn,